Cincinnati Bengals free safety George Iloka (43) walks off the field after the Week 7 NFL game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017, at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. (Photo: Kareem Elgazzar)

Cincinnati Bengals safety George Iloka met with the media for the first time since independent arbitrator Derrick Brooks rescinded his one-game suspension for making helmet-to-helmet contact with Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown on Monday night.

Instead, Iloka was fined $36,464.50. He isn’t happy with the fine amount either, but he realizes winning his appeal of the suspension was against the odds. He will start Sunday against the Chicago Bears.

“I think they made the right decision,” Iloka said. “Going by the odds they don’t really overturn much, even when there’s no means for it in the first place, a lot of people have lost their appeal.

“I wouldn’t say I was confident because they don’t usually overturn stuff.”

Iloka didn’t feel the hit was worth a suspension in the first place and said the league is going too far with its discipline for physical football plays. Iloka noted the play on the sideline where Bengals corner William Jackson III didn’t hit Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell because he was afraid of drawing a flag, but Bell wasn’t out of bounds and scored a key touchdown.

Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown (84) is hit hard in the helmet by Cincinnati Bengals free safety George Iloka (43) as he comes down with the game-tying touchdown pass in the fourth quarter of the NFL Week 13 game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers at Paul Brown Stadium in downtown Cincinnati on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017. The Bengals gave up a 17-3 halftime lead to lose 23-20 on a last-second field goal. (Photo: Sam Greene)

“If you start suspending guys for that, the league is going to turn into a brand of football in which if you’re worried about losing viewers, you would lose a lot more,” Iloka said. “You’ll start having more players in which Willie did on the sideline because you’re so scared of getting a flag. That, to me, I would turn off football to see plays like that. He told you legit, ‘I was scared of getting a personal foul.’

“Fines. Understandable. Repeat offenders. Understandable. Plays away from the ball, like off the ball incidents, post-whistle kind of things. OK. Alright, I think those might warrant suspensions if deemed reasonable. But on-ball kind of plays, which are football plays, to suspend for that, it’ll set a bad precedent to where guys are just going to pull up and just give away things. I’m not a betting man but I can guarantee you next it will be Vegas complaining talking about they’re throwing these games and things like that. They made the right decision. It wasn’t targeting. I’ve heard a couple people say it was retaliation. No. Not the case. It’s just three minutes and some change left and they’re going for a tie, he throws the ball to a tight window and we’re trying to make a play.”

Iloka also felt Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster’s block on Vontaze Burfict that knocked Burfict out of the game with a concussion (and also led to a suspension that was not overturned) was a football play that began with the shoulder and made contact with the head.

“They said and a lot of us said no one agrees with standing over someone that’s hurt, but football plays are football plays,” Iloka said of Smith-Schuster’s taunting. “This game is violent. We know that.”

Iloka was then asked about the comments from Steelers safety Mike Mitchell, who on Wednesday defended Iloka’s hit and said the very nature of the game was being legislated out to the point where it is becoming flag football.

“He obviously understands the position in which we’re in week in and week out,” Iloka said. “Whether he’s defending me, I think he’s just speaking for the future of the game. I’m going to be in that position five more times this game. And the game after that. That’s the position we’re in as safeties. Quarterbacks are going to throw into tight windows and we’re in that situation a lot. He kind of feel like ‘what am I supposed to do?’ I’m asking you guys. You all watch football. None of y’all are coaches, but you’re reporters and journalists – what would you want your safety on your team to do? Just concede a touchdown? You want your corner to concede he’s out of bounds on the sideline? If that’s what you want, OK. Then when someone tells me that, cool. But that’s not how anybody should want the game to be played – not a fan, not a coach, not a player. Period. So I think that’s what he sees, like man, if you’re suspending guys for football plays, what are we doing then? We’re not playing football. It’s just flag. If you want flag go to your local college intramural league, not what we’re doing here.”

Iloka said the league has done a better job in eliminating unnecessary roughness and players are leading and trying to tackle with their shoulders more, but in the action of playing the game the “target area” moves in milliseconds, so there will always be helmet-to-helmet contact. He also said there shouldn't be a targeting rule, because it would put too much pressure on officials and lengthen games with reviews.

“Unless you change the game to something else, which is no longer contact football, which is flag football,” he said. “You can never take that out of the game. You can never take the natural reaction of what football is, which is another man running in one direction and another man running toward his direction to try to bring him down and him to try and keep running. It will be physical. There’s no way you can softly bring a guy down.

“That’s like me going to an MMA battle and saying ‘oh, I’m cool with them punching each other but I don’t like the blood.’ Nah. The blood is a result of them punching each other. Big hits are the result of two men, grown adults running at each other. There will be big hits here and there. You put in the rules and a certain things as far as trying to limit egregious kinds of things and thigs that can be avoidable, but some things are unavoidable and you don’t want to go down that path where it’s going to be a different sport altogether. To all the people complaining that, oh, this is too (violent), they’ll turn it off and the people that are traditional fans, they’ll definitely turn it off.

“I’m just glad they made the right decision. I’m glad that AB is fine. Everybody that got hurt in the game, I hope they end up being OK. Shazier. Vontaze. Joe. It’s the game e play and we understand that and we just hope that no one ever gets hurt. But I’m glad they made the right decision in my case.”